Malta 13

Israel 11

(2‑5), (3‑3), (3‑2), (5‑1)

Malta’s waterpolo national team wrote history, dramatically beating Israel to register our first ever win in the group stage at the European championship. It was anything but easy for the Malta youngsters who crawled back in the game after a dismal first session and then triumphed in the final seconds of the game.

Gialanze put Malta ahead but Israel took full advantage of some defensive mishaps to take a 3‐1 lead. Jayden Cutajar pulled one back from a penalty but till the end of the first quarter Israel scored two further goals for a partial 2‐5 score.

At the start of the second session Castillo was sent off for four minutes for brutality but the Maltese somehow managed to limit the damage closing the session with a partial 3‐3 score with our goals scored by Cutajar and a Gialanze brace.

Malta’s comeback started in the third session with Muscat and Gialanze making it 8‐9. It was an open contest now but before the end of the third session Israel scored again to make it 8‐10.

Muscat scored a penalty at the start but Dor Kotor scored for Israel to make it 9‐11. Jeremy Abela made it 10‐11 and Israel missed a decisive penalty seconds later. Zammit made it 11‐ 11 with 56 seconds to go.

Fotin was sent off for brutality with 35 seconds to go and Zammit converted the penalty for a 12‐11 lead.

Malta regained possession of the ball with less than 30 seconds from the end and in the final second Cutajar scored again to seal the issue for Malta.

Malta: J. Tanti, G. Farrugia, L. Galea, M. Castillo, S. Gialanze (4), J. Bonavia, J. Muscat (3), J. Cuta‐ jar (3), J. Abela (1), N. Zammit (2), D. Zammit, M. Azzopardi, B. Busuttil

Israel: Y. Fire, O. Schlein (2), R. Gros (4), Y. Klarfeld, V. Begin (1), T. Fotin, K. Halevy, I. Gold‐ schmidt, D. Koter (1), Y. Rendler (2), O. Buzaglo, T. Grundlyand (1), M. Smirnov

Referees: B. Margeta (Slove‐ nia), R. Evers (Netherlands)